It looks brand new. Did you refab the whole thing? 
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Ha, no!
I was lucky with the steel, most of it was not rust pitted so a 24 grit disk and wire cup brush cleaned it up pretty good.
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The pulley is off!
Unfortunately, it will not be reusable for other projects.
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And all the kings horses and all the kings men
Could not put Humpty together again!
Lol! Humpty got about 1000 whacks from a 3 lb mallet. My chisel is only marginally better off! That pulley was cast out of some really hard stuff.
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They built the old stuff to last
We told you it was going to take a while. Impatient kids!
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I’m not so much a kid anymore! Consider it shrewd time management haha. I actually went out there to see if there was any signs of it loosening up, started hammering on it, then when it started to move I slid into “refuse to be defeated” mindset and kept at it until it came off!
Right now, I have everything I need to start re-assy. except the new hammers I am having cut. Hope I get them by Friday as it is a long weekend up here coming up.
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So finally got the new hammers back and in, as well as flipping all the rest of them to a new edge. I have assembled the unit as far as I am going to for now.
I am changing direction and will be building a pellet mill. As I read more about gasification (and my recently arrived book: HWWT ) I see the importance of the charcoal bed, and don’t want to possibly waste time with loose straw. Maybe somewhere down the road when I feel like experimenting I’ll look at it again.
The pellet mill will allow me to still utilize the cheap highly available straw for fuel, but also allow me to utilize any free scrap wood that becomes available. It leaves the door open for charcoal fuel as well should I want to gasify my tractor and dozer. Another bonus is I have heated with pellets for over a decade, and making my own pellets would make the switch over to a low cost fuel as simple as dumping straw pellets into the hopper.
Home made pellets seem to leave every door open. They have been successfully gasified many times, they will fuel my existing heating units, they would be great as motor fuel, and can be torrified or carbonized. One of the best things in my mind is producing a densified, uniform fuel that can use a variety of feed stocks (ie what ever comes up free for the taking).
There are a few drawbacks, but it seems worth the trouble to figure them out. The Mill will be a flat die type, and I hope to build a very good quality unit - I work at a fab/machine shop and have the tools and skills for the most part.
So I’ll post a new thread when I get into it. I know it’s not a gasifier, but I’m betting many here would like to see a DIY pellet mill that works with all the specs and method of construction. Consider it a different kind of wood chunker!
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I know I’ll be following along.
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Just be aware that pelletizing straw or grass apparently is no easy feat. Seems to require much R&D for binders, etc. But once you have the equipment it will be amenable to processing sawdust.
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I don’t think pelletizing straw will be an issue, lots of vids on YT showing it being done, and it’s sold pelleted for horse bedding. I read lignin is the third highest polymer in straw, and that is what holds the pellet together. It is also briquetted a lot without binder.
It will be a bit finicky on the die design end though, I’m going to start thick, and mill my way down to a thickness that works trial and error style.
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